Antipodean Audits: Neoliberalism, Illiberal Governments and Australian Universities

Margaret Jolly

Abstract: This article explores neoliberalism in Australian universities, in the context of the politics of a higher education ‘reform package’ introduced by the Liberal-National Party Coalition presently in power in federal government. I focus attention on the relationship between the broader national envi- ronment and the local university configuration at the Australian National University and the dialectic between university academics and students as objects of bureaucratic practices and self-auditing subjects in these new modalities of power. I situate the Australian experience in broader global debates about neoliberalism and universities and earlier ethnographies of audit cultures.

A Vignette, Llewellyn Hall, work but to attend a lunchtime protest 16 October 2003 meeting at which our Vice-Chancellor, Ian Chubb, and the General Secretary of the 16 October 2003: it is a glorious spring day NTEU, Grahame McCulloch, would both on the campus of the Australian National address us. University: peach blossom and wisteria The venue, Llewellyn Hall, is a place plumes vie with red flowering gums and more associated with classical music per- purple Hardenbergia vines. I had eagerly formances and university graduation ritu- hoped to be at home writing this paper, als than a political meeting. But the audi- since the NTEU (the National Tertiary ence was huge and rather excited. In the Education Union) had called a strike of all main business of the meeting the VC, academics and students to protest the lat- Chubby Chubb as he is affectionately est moves in the federal government’s called by some staff, reiterated what was higher education ‘reform package’. Lec- previously announced to the media, that tures had been cancelled and staff meet- he would be proceeding with the terms of ings postponed; we anticipated that the the Enterprise Agreement recently negoti- ANU (Australian National University) ated between the ANU and the NTEU. would be effectively shut down. But the He stressed that this agreement would preceding afternoon all staff received an remain silent on the question of ‘Aus- urgent email from the local chapter of the tralian Workplace Agreements’. Let me NTEU cancelling the strike at the ANU explain. In the 1980s, the centrally adjudi- because of the Vice-Chancellor’s commit- cated national awards that had hitherto ment to proceeding with a new, and high- governed the salaries and conditions of ly favourable, Enterprise Agreement, in most university staff were effectively sup- defiance of new federal government poli- planted by ‘enterprise agreements’, specif- cies. We were invited not just to come to ic to each institution, thus allowing them

Anthropology in Action, Volume 12, Issue 1 (2005): 31-47 © Berghahn Books and the Association for Anthropology in Action AiA | Margaret Jolly

to set salary rates and conditions which individual contracts. Indeed, at the ANU varied with local contexts. These new around 30 per cent of staff were already on enterprise agreements were the result of individual contracts where wages and an earlier generation of higher education conditions were more favourable than that reforms initiated by a Labor govern- of the collective enterprise agreement. ment, especially under the aegis of the (Often this was because their skills were then Federal Minister for Education, John deemed particularly ‘valuable’, i.e. in Dawkins. The present conservative gov- monetary terms. These were usually con- ernment, a Liberal Party-National Party tracts for economists and lawyers, who Coalition,1 led by Prime Minister John could attract far higher salaries else- Howard, was determined to go further in where.) The novelty of Australian Work- such higher education ‘reforms’: to more place Agreements was, rather, that pay thoroughly remake universities in the and conditions could be lower than those image of competitive private corporations achieved in collective enterprise agree- and to eradicate the traces of collective ments. It would thus have allowed lower bargaining among staff, by instituting pay rates and increasing casualisation of new ‘Australian Workplace Agreements’ university staff (see Collins 1994). Another which would be based on the right of controversial aspect of the government’s ‘choice’ of each individual to negotiate ‘reform package’ was an expansion in uni- their own salary and conditions. The versities’ capacities to recruit full-fee-pay- power of unions in the higher education ing students, including those with entry sector, which I should stress are voluntary scores below those who could not pay fees not compulsory, was to be diminished and upfront.2 VC Chubb also reiterated his almost proscribed. University administra- opposition to the new fee regime as de- tions were not to assist in encouraging grading of quality in higher education. As union membership, by advising new staff I had heard him say to the ANU Research of their existence, nor to help in the collec- Committee, ‘I am not going to pass on a tion of union dues from salaries. dog kennel to the next generation’. Chubb’s defiance was not just rhetori- And so Chubb proceeded to outline the cal. Proceeding with the enterprise agree- highlights of the new ANU Enterprise ment being negotiated, including a clause Agreement: a pay rise of 17.4 per cent over which declared silence on Australian three years (which places ANU in the top Workplace Agreements, risked the ANU tier of salaries in Australian universities); being declared ineligible for access to the twenty weeks of parental leave (maternity, $404 million additional funds to be made paternity and adoption leave) and a grad- available to the cash-strapped university uated return to work for mothers in the sector from 2004 to 2005. In a joint contro- first year; pro rata superannuation for versial policy announcement some weeks part-time staff working more than twelve before, Brendan Nelson, the minister for months; ‘economic and moral rights’ to higher education, and Tony Abbott, the intellectual property; support for the minister for industrial relations, had made responsible exercise of intellectual free- this additional funding contingent on uni- dom, and a commitment to retain and versities accepting this new regime of redeploy staff, to use redundancies only as industrial relations. a last resort. As each of these bullet points But, as VC Chubb and Grahame McCul- was displayed on the PowerPoint screen loch both pointed out, the prevailing sys- the audience broke into increasingly rap- tem already allowed the negotiation of turous applause. Both Ian Chubb and 32 Antipodean Audits | AiA

Grahame McCulloch seemed delighted Indeed, the foundations of neoliberalism with the response and beamed at the tele- were laid by federal Labor governments in vision cameras. But, one week later, the the 1980s. Unlike in the UK where neolib- offending legislation was passed by the eralism is seen to have its origins in the House of Representatives (where the gov- Thatcher period (Shore and Wright 2000: ernment had a secure majority). Chubb 63), in Australia it rather originated in the was gambling on the future prospect that longue durée of Labor federal power the legislation would be rejected, or at under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, from least crucial clauses amended before its 1983 to 1996 (see Pusey 1991; Marginson passage through the Senate, where several 2002). senators from smaller parties held the bal- This was a critical period when govern- ance of power.3 ments tried to remake universities in the I offer you this opening vignette not just image of private corporations, and when as an ethnographic anecdote, but because the old Labor values of access and equity I think it distils three important features of in higher education were eclipsed by the neoliberalism in Australian universities. moral creed of enterprise, efficiency and First, the Australian university system is accountability. As elsewhere, there was a distinctive insofar as its major institutions proliferation of the language and practices are public institutions, mandated by gov- of audit in which ‘the financial and the ernment legislation and still supported in moral meet in the twinned precepts of eco- large measure by federal taxation. Although nomic efficiency and ethical practice’ there is an increasing reliance on external (Strathern 2000: unpaginated preface). I funding, and some expansion of private will turn to these dynamics in a moment, universities,4 private wealth and endow- but first a few preliminary thoughts on ments are far less important than in the neoliberalism in Australia. United States and even the United King- dom (although there the autonomy conferred by royal charters and private Some Brief Thoughts on wealth has been progressively eroded in Neoliberalism in Australia the last twenty years; see Shore and Wright 2000). This reliance on federal In an important early work, Michael taxes shapes the contours of the Australian Pusey (1991) charted the massive impact debate about ‘accountabililty’, in both eco- of economic rationalism (or neoliberalism) nomic and moral senses. Secondly, howev- in the Australian public sector from 1975 er, neoliberal policies are not just dracon- to 1990. This was influenced in part by the ian impositions by the federal govern- economic rationalism of both Thatcher in ment, but are negotiated by active sub- the UK and Reagan in the US, with their jects—including university bureaucracies cognate ideological agendas of ‘rolling as well as the collective and individual back the state’ and underwriting the agency of academic staff. Although uni- divine power of the market. But, as Pusey versity executives and employees have shows, neoliberalism in Australia has a perforce embraced the practice and the distinctive character. Neoliberal values language of neoliberalism, there are also increasingly pervaded the philosophies of large and small resistances. Thirdly, politicians of both the major parties, Left neoliberal policies and practices are not and Right, and thus there was a ‘bipar- just a recent phenomenon, associated with tisan consensus without any electorally the present conservative government. effective opposition’ (Pusey 1991: 3). 33 AiA | Margaret Jolly

Equally crucial in his view was the in- The values of access and equity justified creasing hegemony of neoliberal values the massive expansion and a unified among senior public sector bureaucrats in national system of all tertiary institutions the national capital, Canberra.5 (in the process upgrading many colleges to Importantly, then, neoliberal policies in universities). This was ostensibly to move Australia were instituted not by a conserv- tertiary education from an elite privilege ative but by a Labor government from the to an accessible right for all with academic early 1980s. Older protectionist policies merit. But this dramatic expansion was gave way to a novel stress on unregulated accompanied by other measures, which international trade. The Australian dollar rather compromised access and equity. was floated in December 1983. At home Tertiary fees were introduced along with financial deregulation, high levels of unem- the new system of HECS (Higher Educa- ployment, high taxes and interest rates, and tion Contribution Scheme), whereby fees burgeoning corporate profits prevailed could either be paid upfront or deferred until the crash of October 1987. Prime Min- and paid later by students, when their ister Bob Hawke, an erstwhile Rhodes income reached a certain threshold. This scholar and union leader, instituted accords diminished the numbers of young tertiary between government and unions to control students from working-class backgrounds strikes and wage increases, and promoted a and mature-age women, both of whom corporatist ethos which stressed the tripar- had been entering universities in large tite alliance of government, unions and cor- numbers in the previous decade. porations. Increasingly, the economic poli- Associated with these major changes cies of this government privileged entre- was the pervasive spread of neoliberal lan- preneurial values and the inexorable power guages and practices (see Watson 2003). of the market. Paul Keating, treasurer to Education was increasingly referred to as Hawke and later Prime Minister, made por- ‘training’, even in courses where vocation- tentous speeches about the danger of Aus- al orientation was minimal. University tralia becoming a banana republic, if the vice-chancellors were enjoined to act like dollar was not floated. CEOs of private corporations and to instil the values of efficiency and entrepreneuri- alism among their staff. Universities were Neoliberalism in Higher Education provoked to compete with each other not just for students but for quality staff. In higher education, older Labor values Financial decentralisation was implement- stressed access and equity, exemplified in ed, so that ever smaller academic units the Whitlam government’s commitments became ‘cost centres’ and competed with to no university fees and to scholarships each other for performance-based alloca- for students from working-class families tions. Cooperation with private corpora- in the early 1970s. This transformed the tions was strenuously urged and acade- class and gender composition of under- mics were enjoined to seek greater exter- graduate and graduate students in that nal funding from industry and private generation. I was a beneficiary of that foundations in Australia and overseas. process. But when Labor returned to Yet despite the rhetorics of a small state power in 1983, under Prime Minister Bob and reduced state intervention, the federal Hawke, these values were increasingly government increasingly intruded into the eclipsed by a new stress on corporatism, internal workings of each institution with economic efficiency and accountability. a series of auditing practices that moni- 34 Antipodean Audits | AiA tored the performance of both individual (RTS), the combined aim of which was to staff and collectivities. These involved ‘recognise and reward those institutions large national reviews of undergraduate that support excellence and diverse and graduate education and a range of research activities and provide high-quali- measures to assess the quality and quan- ty research training environments’. These tity of research. Most of these entailed a became operative from 1 January 2002. process of annual reporting to the Com- The Department of Education, Science and monwealth department overseeing higher Training now funds universities according education, currently called the Depart- to formulae based on undergraduate and ment of Education, Science and Training graduate student enrolments and comple- (DEST). This greatly increased the bureau- tions, competitive external research grants cratic burdens on all staff at a time when awarded and publications. I will not bore staff:student ratios were dramatically you with the arcane complexities of these declining and when higher education formulae and their interaction. But I do funding was being reduced in real terms want to detail the parameters of the for- (see Coaldrake and Stedman 1999). All of mulae for the IGS and the relative weight- these policies and practices were legiti- ing of its components. Allocations are mated by recourse to the pervasive ideolo- based on gy of accountability, empowered by the moral injunction to account for the disper- • research income (collected nationally sal of dollars deriving from Australian tax- through the Higher Education payers. Students were enjoined to co-pay Research Data Collection [HERDC]), for their own tertiary education, since this weighted at 60 per cent; was assumed to be the basis of later class • commonwealth-funded research privilege. These processes, set in motion student load (excluding international during the longue durée of Labor govern- students), weighted at 30 per cent; ment from 1983 to 1996, were intensified and when the conservative coalition govern- • research publications (data also ment came to power, under John Howard. collected through HERDC), Under the previous Minister for Educa- weighted at 10 per cent. tion, David Kemp, and the present incum- bent, Brendan Nelson, lesser state provi- I note the hefty weighting towards suc- sion was routinely accompanied by cess in gaining income from competitive greater state intrusion (see Kemp 1999; research funds (including the Australian 2001; Marginson 2002). Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council funded by the Commonwealth) and the greatly Formulaic Performances: The New increased importance of Australian gradu- DEST Regime in Research ate enrolment and completions (‘research training’ in the new parlance). These fig- As a result of policies announced under ure in both the IGS and RTS formulae and Kemp’s white paper of 1999, Knowledge have become crucial areas of growth for all and Innovation, a new performance-based universities, a feat more easily accom- system of funding research was intro- plished by research-intensive universities, duced. This established two funding such as my own. The increased impor- schemes: the Institutional Grants Scheme tance conferred on research training was, (IGS) and the Research Training Scheme however, accompanied by stringent new 35 AiA | Margaret Jolly

regulations on the period for which grad- Although DEST seems to have reduced uate students could be funded. Efficient publications to an unreliable or a refracto- and parsimonious ‘training’ was deemed ry measure of performance, that has not newly critical; there had to be a faster hindered the collection of vast archives of ‘throughput’ of students. Thus, for doctor- information on research publications. al students the period considered to be ‘on There is an extraordinarily detailed nation- course’ was reduced to a maximum of al system for recording publications, three and a half years. Students still com- counting their relative weight and audit- pleting their theses beyond that time were ing the collection of that process. Each not supported by scholarships, and more- year, throughout the months of November over should not be counted as enrolled. and December, academics all over Aus- Cost centres were to be penalised for late- tralia are engaged heavily in the processes completing students, since the large sums of annual reporting to their institutions of money paid to universities on comple- and in the collection of DEST data. This tion (and then passed, after taxes, onto entails not just a simple list of the books academic units) were not paid in these and papers published in each cost centre instances. I have elsewhere intimated the but also marshalling them into serried impact of these new policies on graduate ranks of significance and numerical value: education in anthropology in Australia refereed single-authored books, journal (Jolly and Jamieson 2002; and see more articles, chapters in edited collections, con- generally Marginson 2002). ference papers, patents and refereed The other feature of these formulae I designs are all considered and ranked. want to highlight here is the tiny weight Conference papers can be counted if they attached to publications. These account for have been refereed, but books intended for a miniscule 10 per cent in one formula (the teaching, like undergraduate textbooks, IGS). The rationale for this is that publica- cannot. This is rationalised by the logic tions are much harder to count and assess that they are mere summations of existing than student numbers or grant dollars. knowledge rather than creations of new This is clearly the case. There are huge knowledge (a rationale that might exclude problems in assessing the quality and not some journal articles too!). ‘Items written just the quantity of publications: for exam- for the general population, or translations ple, in agreeing on what the most influen- of previously published work, or collec- tial presses and journals might be in each tions of previously published work’ are field, in using citation indices as an index expressly excluded. Edited books and cre- of influence, and on adjudging the relative ative works are difficult to include. Books values of different genres of publication— must be published by commercial publish- books, journal articles, chapters, creative ers, not university or government depart- works, patents—which are often diver- ments. To give you a sense of the ‘tyranny gent across different scholarly fields. Still, of numbers’ entailed in such exercises I the weighting of publications to a mere 10 offer the ANU summary of these DEST per cent of one formula risks demeaning specifications, and a specific example of this important academic responsibility the methodology for how to weight a book (even as research publications remain a chapter (Appendices 1 and 2). crucial index of internal performance and a As well as this process of compilation privileged, perduring criterion in promo- and adjudication, there are also complex tion—see below). ‘rituals of verification’ (Strathern 2000: 3), whereby ISBN or ISSN numbers must be 36 Antipodean Audits | AiA recorded, the number of chapters in edit- of dialogue and mentoring (see Shore and ed collections noted, the editorial pages Wright 2000), but the process is imbued which assure journals are refereed stored, with the potential of great bureaucratic and statements signed by all authors power—since the supervisor can make a accepting their responsibility for the sole positive or a negative report, can support or joint authorship of all this new knowl- pay increments and promotions or not, edge. I am extremely fortunate to be assist- and at worst can report inadequate perfor- ed in this compilation by a superb and mance which might ultimately lead to meticulous research assistant and dedicat- redundancy. The staff member has the ed workers in our central administration. power of a rejoinder on the comments of But the months of November and Decem- the supervisor, and perhaps the immedi- ber are still enormously cluttered with the ate supervisor’s comments will be coun- onerous demands of these reports and tered by differing opinions of their own associated audits. These reports are com- supervisors. Such reviews are perforce pulsory. If they are not given to govern- kept in confidence, even from the univer- ment on time, funding can be withdrawn sity auditors, according to Professor James and past allocations may need to be repaid. Fox, presently Director of the Research Let me now consider how these funding School of Pacific and Asian Studies (pers. formulae imposed by DEST resonate inter- comm., November 2003). Still, auditing nally in an institution—the one I know constructs extremely hierarchical patterns best, the ANU. Here we see both echoes of of academic dialogue, rather than being an and dissonances from the language of innocent project of self-reflection and accountability emanating from DEST. ‘strategic planning’. Promotions are less directly dependent on the opinions of academic supervisors, ANU Echoes and Dissonances: since they can be initiated by the individual Planning and Performance Reviews and ultimately depend on the collective and Promotions Criteria adjudication of both local and central promotions committees. In my experience of Such echoes and dissonances from DEST serving on one such committee for several funding formulae are perhaps most evi- years (the Central Promotions Committee dent in the annual processes of planning delegated by BIAS [the Board of the Insti- and performance reviews and promotions. tute of Advanced Studies]),6 my sense is Both require academic staff to report their that such committees are extremely hard- achievements under several criteria: re- working and do their best to make judi- search, teaching, service to the university cious decisions on the basis of mountains and service to the community. Both also of material presented: applications from require the academic to engage in that candidates, reports from academic supervi- process of ‘self-auditing’, which involves sors, directors and deans and, of course, both forward projection (plans for the the all-important anonymous referees. future) and backward projection (account- But there is a dissonance between the ing for what has been achieved and what criteria used for promotion and those used has not). The planning and performance by DEST in its formulaic assessments of review is an annual requirement for all performance. The criteria differ for those staff in association with their academic engaged in undergraduate teaching, grad- supervisor. The latter is enjoined to review uate education and research, and those the staff member’s performance in a spirit engaged only in the latter two activities 37 AiA | Margaret Jolly

(staff in the IAS [Institute of Advanced to the particular challenges that the feder- Studies] and, increasingly, research-only al government’s ‘reform package’ poses staff funded by the ARC [Australian for graduate education in anthropology. Research Council] and other bodies). For the latter staff, there are four crucial criteria: research output and grant success; The Fate of Graduate Education in graduate education; service to the univer- Anthropology—In Australia and sity (administration, committees); and ser- at the ANU vice to the profession and community. Staff are at liberty to vary the percentages I have elsewhere written in some detail allocated to each in relation to their own about the impact of these new DEST provi- perceived strengths and weaknesses. But, sions on graduate education in anthropolo- the overwhelming significance given to gy in Australia. Let me quote from an earli- winning research grants and to educating er paper co-authored with Tina Jamieson. graduate students in the DEST formulae is On the basis of a national survey that we not reflected in the internal promotions carried out, of students enrolled in higher criteria. As we might properly expect of an degrees in anthropology in Australia in institution that is proud of its internation- 2000, and a comparison with the situation al research reputation, the pre-eminent in the US, we concluded that emphasis here is on research publications, both quality and quantity, as reflected in Compared to laboratory or library-based research, ethnographic research, especially the words of referees, book reviewers and, when done in an unfamiliar locale in a foreign especially apropos the natural sciences, language, poses immense challenges for com- citation indices and patents. It is only at pletion in three and a half years. With more senior levels of academic appoint- increased government emphasis on faster completion times, there may be pressure to ment that winning large external research shorten the period of fieldwork to allow for grants is seen as crucial and given compa- the necessary analysis and writing within rable credit. And even there, scholars three or three and a half years. (…) Rather might potentially be promoted to senior than consolidating a move towards an innov- ative nation we would be ‘dumbing down’ by positions, even if they have devoted very accepted international standards. The model little time to graduate education. of the doctorate in anthropology graduate Thus, although there are both external education needs critical review, but a reduc- and internal audits, there is a dissonance tion in the time for field research and analysis would be a regressive, not a progressive, between the criteria favoured by DEST move (Jolly and Jamieson 2002: 57).7 and those privileged in internal university decisions. I personally rather favour the At the ANU we are fending off the more far heavier weighting given by the ANU to deleterious consequences of the DEST for- research publications, since large research mulae, through an internal bureaucratic grants are not so important in themselves accommodation that allows slower com- but, rather, provide the means to do quali- pletion times in fieldwork-based disci- ty research and to publish. Still, the gap plines like anthropology. But this entails a between the national formulae by which minimal change from a cut-off at three and we are funded and the local formulae by a half years to four. Other strategies are which we are assessed and promoted also being devised to increase the pace of makes for cognitive dissonance for indi- completion: a more intensive and collec- vidual academics, administrators and the tive phase of theoretical and methodologi- collectivities of the institution. I now turn cal preparation for the field; a preference 38 Antipodean Audits | AiA for students who arrive well prepared in witnessing a dramatic decrease of scholar- terms of language and cultural immersion ships available for overseas students (from in their proposed field site; and a prolifer- seventeen in 2003 to thirteen in 2004) in ation of thesis-writing groups designed to comparison to an increasing number of assist students, alongside the advice of those available to Australian and New supervisors and advisors on panels. Still, Zealand students. VC Chubb is adamant graduate student representatives reported that every such student with a first-class increasing levels of stress among doctoral honours should receive either an APA or an scholars because of the new surveillance ANU scholarship. This seems reasonable and punishment regimes about comple- enough, but the divergent trends in the tion times. Some also felt that the expecta- numbers of international and national tions that they had for greater autonomy scholarships has the potential to compro- as graduate scholars were being compro- mise the principle of merit by a stress on mised by increased expectations of atten- the criterion of nationality in the funding of dance at the proliferating series of semi- talented students. This disparity is rein- nars, which were in effect coursework, forced by changes in migration policies although not officially designated as such. which require international students to Another unfortunate effect of the new leave two weeks after submission of their DEST formulae is the differential weight it thesis, unless a job is offered in Australia. gives to Australian and New Zealand ver- sus overseas scholars. The ANU has a long tradition of attracting high-quality over- National Research Priorities: seas students, from North America, Naturalising the Privilege of the Europe, Asia and the Pacific, especially. Natural Sciences These are supported by special scholarships (IPRS [International Postgraduate Another invidious effect of the govern- Research Scholarships] and ANU scholar- ment’s new ‘reform package’ is the widen- ships) the stipends for which are compara- ing of the gap between the natural sci- ble to the APAs (Australian Postgraduate ences and humanities and social sciences Awards) available to Australian students. in terms of sheer research dollars awarded But overseas students, unlike Australian by government. This was compounded in and New Zealand citizens, must pay the process of setting ‘National Research tuition fees up front, and so they need to Priorities’, first for the ARC (Australian compete not just for stipends but for fee- Research Council) in 2001 and then in 2002 waiver scholarships, which are increasing- for all government sources of research ly rare. Moreover, in the DEST formulae, funding.8 Those established by the ARC in overseas students prove not to be so valu- 2001 were exclusively in the natural sci- able in the budget as local students. They ences, and privileged nanotechnology and are not counted in an ongoing way as part reproductive biology. In the first instance, of those students who are undergoing the Education Minister Brendan Nelson ‘research training’. It is only when their declared that in 2002 the priorities would degrees are completed that funds flow, in a be confined to the natural sciences, and trickle over several years, to the relevant that humanities and social sciences priori- institution and ultimately, in reduced ties would be established later in 2004. amounts, down to the level of department But, when that occasioned howls of or centre where the work was done. And so protest from the Academies of Humanities in recent rounds at the ANU we have been and the Social Sciences and many acade- 39 AiA | Margaret Jolly

mic staff, it was decided to try to incorpo- study of my own institution, the ANU, in rate them alongside the natural sciences. the context of our broad themes about In the end their inclusion proved residual audit cultures and the politics of account- at best. ability. There is little doubt that Australian The process of establishing these priori- higher education is, as elsewhere, increas- ties in 2002 involved seemingly open and ingly pervaded by neoliberal values and public processes of consultation (electroni- subject to the hegemony of ‘audit cultures’. cally through websites and in public meet- As elsewhere, here too economic efficiency ings) and frantic behind the scenes lobby- has become a new morality. But the way in ing, especially of the government-appoint- which the politics of accountability is ed Chief Scientist and the committee of negotiated has a particular national charac- experts chosen to advise on National ter, and the language of the audit, perhaps Research Priorities. If the internal process has an antipodean inflection. of establishing these priorities at the ANU First, I want to stress again the impor- was an accurate reflection, the work tance of neoliberalism in higher education involved was immense: a hugely compli- originating from a Labor government cated collection of diverse suggestions rather than from a conservative one. This coming from every academic area; a siev- bipartisan political consensus not only ing for overlap and duplication; and then makes opposition difficult, as Pusey (1991) strenuous attempts to meld them into four argued, but neoliberal Labor antecedents cognate themes, with text drafted by four in a way license the present conservative committees, established to work in associ- government to go even further. This can ation with the Deputy Vice-Chancellor. As be seen in my opening example, in the pre- is the case with most of Nelson’s reviews sent political struggle to make further of higher education, over the last year or funding contingent on a new industrial so, the time frame given was pre-emptory relations regime, where opposition to the and the bureaucratic effort involved fran- collective bargaining power of unions is tic. As it transpired, the four priorities sug- sanctified by recourse to the idea of indi- gested by the ANU came very close those vidual ‘choice’. But the large gap between finally announced by government. These the conservative neoliberal rhetoric about were ultimately more like moral state- reduced state power and the sanctity of ments about the fragility of collective the individual and the reality of the mas- futures, rather than robust or researchable sive growth of state surveillance and quo- projects (see Strathern this volume). They tidian intrusion in the higher education were: An Environmentally Sustainable sector is becoming more obvious and Australia; Promoting and Maintaining politically sensitive. Good Health; Frontier Technologies for Secondly, in comparison with the situa- Building and Transforming Australian tion in the UK described by Shore and Industries; Safeguarding Australia. Wright (2000), government intrusion into the internal practices of universities has not been so mediated by the use of coun- Keeping the Bureaucratic Peace or cils or regulatory bodies staffed by acade- Making Bureaucratic War? mics themselves—as in the work of the committees of Academic Audits (AAs), In conclusion let me try to situate this very Teaching Quality Assessments (TQAs) and specific material about Australian univer- Research Assessment Exercises (RAEs), sities and my admittedly parochial case that ‘panopticon of inspections’ experi- 40 Antipodean Audits | AiA enced in UK universities from the 1990s. cratic peace. And, with the return of the Although there is much debate at present Coalition government to federal power on about adopting a version of the UK model, 9 October 2004, it seems that aggressive federal governments have regularly reject- neoliberal attacks on universities are sure ed the idea of a higher education council to intensify. and rather, have imposed their will more directly through the use of the auditing Margaret Jolly is Professor and Head of the requirements policed by DEST and Gender Relations Centre in the Research through the periodic realignment of fund- School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Aus- ing formulae based on such ‘perfor- tralian National University, Australia. Her mances’. This uncertainty, of course, has email is [email protected]. generated anxiety, but not always norma- tive compliance. Indeed, spirited com- plaints about the dramatic reduction of Notes academic autonomy and cynicism about the fluidity of funding formulae are regu- My thanks to Geremie Barmé, Mark Mosko and larly expressed by senior executives such Nathan Boyle for their comments and suggestions. as vice-chancellors as much as by other 1. In the spectrum of Australian politics, the Lib- academic staff. The AVCC, the council of eral Party is right wing or conservative. In comparison with political parties in the UK, it all Australian Vice-Chancellors, is saturat- is closer to the Tories than to the Liberal ed by the rivalry and competition that Democrats. The National Party is a party government policy wilfully provokes, but grounded in rural Australia, which particular- there have also been important moments ly represents the interests of farmers and gra- ziers. The Liberal-National Party coalition, in of collective criticism and resistance. The power since 1996, has adopted strong policies use of a more direct ‘coercive accountabil- against refugees, joined the war on terror and ity’ may in a paradoxical way reduce nor- the war in Iraq, eroded gains made in the area mative compliance. of native title and reconciliation with indige- nous Australians, promoted private medical Third, however, I do not wish to down- insurance at the expense of the nationalised play how audit cultures have become health system Medicare, and while increasing ‘business as usual’ in Australian universi- support for mothers who stay at home, has ties. Here, too, the dialectic of ‘external made child care almost prohibitively expensive for working parents. It may move to restrict subjection and internal subjectification’ is abortions in this term. clearly at work. Here, too, ‘seemingly dull 2. The legislation also aimed to reduce the size of routine and bureaucratic practices’ have university governing councils and to prohibit had profound effects on social life in uni- members of parliament from serving on them. It also proposed to charge students real rather versities (Shore and Wright 2002: 57). Our than nominal interest rates on their loans professional lives as anthropologists and under the HECS scheme, but to increase the as scholars have been dramatically re- threshold of income at which loans would be moulded by the way in which we are per- paid back to $A35,000 per annum (Higher Edu- cation Supplement, The Australian, 5 November force engaged in processes of self-auditing 2003). (see Argyrou 2000 on ‘self-accountability’). 3. Subsequently a Senate inquiry into the pro- But I suspect that the configuration of this posed legislation recommended outright rejec- dialectic has a rather different shape in tion by senators. The federal government tried to woo the votes of independent senators from Australia than in UK or the US. At present Tasmania with enticements and concessions to there seems to be more risk of bureaucrat- universities in that state. (Higher Education ic war being unleashed by aggressive Supplement, The Australian, 5 November 2003). neoliberalism than of keeping the bureau- The legislation was subsequently passed in 41 AiA | Margaret Jolly

that parliamentary session, with dramatic References amendments. However, the government was returned after an election on 9 October 2004 with an outright majority in the Senate. It is Academy of the Social Sciences in envisaged that legislation ‘reforming’ the pre- Australia; Australian Research Council; sent state of industrial relations, outlawing stu- and National Board of Employment, dent unions, further increasing student fees, Education and Training 1998a introducing teaching-only universities and concentrating the power of higher education at Challenges for the Social Sciences and federal rather than the state level is likely to be Australia vol. 1, Canberra: Australian introduced in the next year or so. Brendan Nel- Government Publishing Service. son remains the Minister in the Parliament. Academy of the Social Sciences in 4. There are presently three private universities in the national system: Bond University in Australia; Australian Research Council; Queensland, Notre Dame in Western Australia and National Board of Employment, and the multi-campus Australian Catholic Uni- Education and Training 1998b versity. However, since the signing of the Free Challenges for the Social Sciences and Trade Agreement with the United States in 2003/4, Carnegie Mellon is establishing a uni- Australia vol. 2, Canberra: Australian versity in Adelaide from 2006. This, rather than Government Publishing Service. an internal concentration of research funds, Argyrou, V. 2000 ‘Self-accountability, may be the main reason for the government Ethics and the Problem of Meaning’, in proposal of ‘teaching-only’ universities. 5. Pusey based his study in large part on inter- M. Strathern (ed.) Audit Cultures: views with 215 public servants from the Senior Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Executive Service, comprising nearly half of Ethics and the Academy, London and that population in the key Commonwealth New York: Routledge, 196-212. departments. He stressed that such top public servants not only implement policy but help to Australian Academy of the Humanities; formulate it, broker political interests and artic- Australian Research Council; and ulate national ideals and goals (Pusey 1991: 2). National Board of Employment, The senior officers in the high-prestige depart- Education and Training 1998 Knowing ments of Prime Minister and Cabinet and Trea- sury and Finance were typically younger male Ourselves and Others: The Humanities in economists, educated in elite Protestant private Australia into the 21st Century, schools and then in departments of economics Canberra: Department of Employment, where the curriculum was dominated by neo- Education, Training and Youth Affairs. classical theory and technically oriented practice. Pusey found that these influential young Coaldrake, P. and L. Stedman 1999 men had strong commitments to ‘less state pro- Academic Work in the Twenty-first vision’ and ‘more individual initiative’. Century: Changing Roles and Policies, 6. I always joked with colleagues as to the aptness Occasional Paper Series Canberra: of this acronym, since this Board was very male dominated. On many occasions I was one of Higher Education Division, DETYA, only three or four women present in a room of Commonwealth of Australia. about forty colleagues. Collins, J. with advice from C. Bulbeck 7. Our comparison with the US was strategic 1994 The Casualisation of Research since this reduction in fieldwork time has already occurred in the UK However, the three- Postgraduate Employment, The year limit on the doctorate there is to some Australian Institute for Women’s extent ameliorated by the potential of addition- Research and Policy Canberra: al funding for a year of language and cultural Australian Government Publishing immersion (Tim Bayliss-Smith, personal com- munication, October 2004). Service. 8. See Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Jolly, M. and T. Jamieson 2002 1998a and 1998b, and Australian Academy of ‘Anthropology: Reconfiguring a Janus Humanities 1998, for earlier reflections on such Face in a Global Epoch’, in S. gaps. Marginson (ed.) Investing in Social 42 Antipodean Audits | AiA

Capital: Postgraduate Training in the Social Sciences in Australia, Journal of Australian Studies 74: 45-72, 219-24. Kemp, D. 1999 Knowledge and Innovation: A Policy Statement on Research and Research Training Canberra: Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Commonwealth of Australia. Kemp, D. 2001 Higher Education Report for the 2001 to 2003 Triennium, Canberra: Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Commonwealth of Australia. Marginson, S. (ed.) 2002 Investing in Social Capital: Postgraduate Training in the Social Sciences in Australia, Journal of Australian Studies 74 (Special Issue). Pusey, M. 1991 Economic Rationalism in Canberra: A Nation-Building State Changes its Mind, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Shore, C. and S. Wright 2000 ‘Coercive accountability: The Rise of Audit Culture in Higher Education’, in M. Strathern (ed.) Audit Cultures: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics and the Academy, London and New York: Routledge, 57-89. Strathern, M. (ed.) 2000 Audit Cultures: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics and the Academy, London and New York: Routledge. Watson, D. 2003 Death Sentence: The Decay of Public Language, Sydney: Vintage Books.

43 AiA | Margaret Jolly

Appendix 1: Summary of DEST Specifications for the Main Categories

All publications must meet the following requirements: ❏ previously unpublished ❏ scholarly research i.e. pure basic research, strategic basic research, applied research or experimental development, written for the academic community ❏ claimed author/s were members of staff or students at the ANU when the research leading to the publication was conducted ❏ was published in 2003

A1: Book ❏ must have an ISBN and be bound or packaged and offered for sale ❏ published by a commercial publisher whose core business is publishing ❏ unlikely to be included if it’s a textbook, edited book, creative work, translation, anthology, revision or new edition

B1: Book chapter ❏ the book must have an ISBN and be bound or packaged and offered for sale ❏ published by a commercial publisher whose core business is publishing ❏ unlikely to be if it is part of a textbook, creative work, translation or anthology ❏ the chapter is not a revision or new edition ❏ unlikely to be included if it’s an entry in a reference work, foreword or brief introduction

C1: Journal article ❏ the Journal has an ISSN ❏ the Journal is refereed, shown by • its inclusion in ISI, Ulrich, or the ANU journals list, or • the journal states that contributions are refereed or peer reviewed or • the editor states that contributions are refereed or peer reviewed or • a referee’s assessment indicating the full paper was assessed • the article is an invited article in a refereed journal ❏ unlikely to be included if it is a professional article, newspaper or magazine article, advisory, letter to editor or book review

E1: Conference publication ❏ full written version of conference paper (not an abstract or extended abstract) ❏ published (volume of proceedings, book, journal, monograph, CD Rom, organisational web site) ❏ conference of international or national significance ❏ refereed—either: • publication states full papers refereed or • organiser/editor states full papers refereed or • referee’s assessment indicates full paper assessed or • keynote address ❏ unlikely to be included if it’s a handout available to conference attendees only, minor conference, poster presentation 44 Antipodean Audits | AiA

Appendix 2: DEST Specifications, Book Chapter Calculation Methodology

Calculation of Weighting

To count book chapters, use the following methodology.

The calculation should be done for each author, then aggregated for all authors at the university, to obtain a total score for contributions to the book.

The first chapter contributed to by an author is given a value of 1. Remaining chapters in the book contributed to by the same author are scored on a pro-rata basis.

Step 1

Identify a chapter to which the author contributes alone, or with as few other contributors as possible.

The value of that chapter for the author is 1 divided by the total number of contributors to that chapter.

Step 2

The value of the remaining chapters for the author is calculated by adding the share of each remaining chapter contributed by the author, then multiplying by 4 and dividing by one less than the number of chapters in the book.

Step 3

The total value of the book for the author is derived by adding the figures derived from step 1 and step 2.

Example A:

In a book of 16 chapters, author A contributes 1 solely-authored chapter.

Step 1

The value is 1 divided by 1 equals 1.

Step 2

There are no further chapters to count.

45 AiA | Margaret Jolly

Step 3

1 plus 0 equals 1. Author A’s contribution is worth 1.

Example B:

In a book of 16 chapters, author B contributes 2 chapters alone, 1 chapter in conjunction with 1 other author, 1 chapter in conjunction with 2 other authors and 1 chapter in conjunction with 4 other authors.

Step 1

One of the chapters contributed alone should be counted here. The value is 1 divided by 1 equals 1.

Step 2

The author has contributed a whole, a half, a third, and a fifth respectively to four of the fifteen remaining chapters in the book. Thus the value of those other chapters is (1+0.5+0.33+0.2)*4/(16-1) = 0.54.

Step 3

The total value of the book for the author is 1.54 (1 derived from step 1 plus 0.54 from step 2).

Example C:

In a book of 21 chapters, author B contributes 1 chapter in conjunction with 1 other author and 1 chapter in conjunction with 2 other authors.

Step 1

The chapter contributed with 1 other author is the one with least contributors. Choose this chapter for step 1. The value of this chapter is 0.5 (chapter value of 1 divided by 2 contributors).

Step 2

The other chapter contributed is worth 0.33 multiplied by 4 divided by 20 (20 being the number of chapters remaining after the one given credit in step 1), equals 0.07.

46 Antipodean Audits | AiA

Step 3

The total value of the book to the author is 0.57 (0.5 derived from step 1 plus 0.07 derived from step 2).

Example D:

In a book of 21 chapters, author D contributes 2 chapters in collaboration with 1 other, 3 chapters in conjunction with 3 others, and 1 with 4 others.

Step 1

Count a chapter shared with 1 other here. Value 0.5.

Step 2

The value of the other chapters is (0.5+0.25+0.25+0.25+0.2)*4/(21-1) = 0.29.

Step 3

Total value is 0.5+0.29 = 0.79.

If authors C and D are contributors from the same university to the same book, the university will be credited with 1.36 (0.57+0.79) in category B from that book.

DEST has placed a spreadsheet on the web site which universities should use to calculate automatically the value of an author’s contribution to an edited book.